Category-activity puzzles as resources for humor in L2 classrooms

Abstract

Categories are inference-rich and do implicative work storing a great deal of knowledge that members of a society have about the society. Drawing on Membership Categorization Analysis, and sequential analysis from Conversation Analysis, this study explores participants' categorial orientations in talk-in-interaction that is produced and/or treated as humorous in the Second Language (L2) classrooms. More specifically, this study presents an in-depth analysis of the way category-activity puzzles, which display incongruous combination of membership categories and category-bound activities, are formed, and made relevant and consequential in talk that is produced and/or treated as humorous. In doing so, it unpacks how participants invoke, negotiate, and deal with category-activity puzzles as resources for producing and/or treating utterances as humorous in L2 classrooms. The analysis will also illustrate the way participants use their understanding of common-sense knowledge and category memberships as a resource in managing and negotiating incongruities created through category-puzzles, which are treated as humorous. As such, this study contributes to the growing body of MCA and humor studies in classrooms and advances our understanding with regards to the categorial orientations of participants in L2 classrooms.